Priorities in fitness have recently changed.

My priorities in fitness have recently changed and am looking for some help and guidance on how to go about accomplishing my goal.

History:
In 2003 I rode in the Triple Bypass ride here in Colorado (3 mountain passes & 120 miles). I only made it to Breckenridge (about 70 miles) defeated mentally and physically. I made several mistakes that I recognize now. I was about 15 pounds overweight, did not do enough long rides & I did not eat during the ride. I did do several mountain pass rides before for training though.

Why it is so important:
My father-in-law recently passed away and I would like to defeat this goal of mine as a celebration to him.

Current fitness:
I am pretty big into weightlifting (benching about 350# etc..). I currently weigh about 195lbs at 5’10” tall. I believe my fat % is around 15%. I would like to get down to around 180lbs (I believe that would be a good weight for me to tackle the passes). I weight lift 4-5 days a week and am trying to get about 45 min of cardio in a day. I have cut down on my weekly alcohol consumption and am trying to eat a little bit smaller portions. I currently have a buddy who now also wants to do this ride which should help greatly.

Questions:
How do I go about tackling becoming a great climber & long distance rider without loosing too much muscle? Do I need to cut down on my upper-body lifting? Will the extra riding take care of everything on its own?

The short answer is that you need to concentrate on the specific requirements of climbing--lower weight to increase your power-to-weight ratio; increased efficency (oxygen usage, fuel usage, increased utilization of lipids) over the time to cover the required distance; higher lactate threshold to increase your fractional use of VO2Max.

To get there, imho, you need to ride hills that are similar to the ones you'll face during the goal ride, lose weight, and ride long often.

Regarding losing weight, you should try get to your goal weight by decreasing fat percentage, but you'll certainly lose some muscle. How much? Dunno. It'll be dependent on many variables. Long rides will help you lose weight as long as you don't overcompensate by overfeeding before, during, and after. It's better to increase your protein intake and balance your carbohydrate intake leaving fat as the remainder.

How can we increase protein intake without even knowing what his diet is? Protein-intake should match muscle-rebuilding rate.

Originally Posted by DenverCruiser

Questions:
How do I go about tackling becoming a great climber & long distance rider without loosing too much muscle? Do I need to cut down on my upper-body lifting? Will the extra riding take care of everything on its own?

In order to lose some weight and increase endurance, you'll need to do longer rides, 2-3 hours at least once a week. It's the long rides that burn off as much calories as possible that allows weight-loss to occur, along with consuming fewer-calories than you burnt off. Now here's the catch, you need to eat on that ride. You can only store enough muscle-glycogen for about 2-2.5 hour. After that you will BONK and crawl along at 10mph looking on the ground for carbs to eat. Burning fat for energy can only occur with carbs to initiate the process. Once your carbs are gone, your body will take apart perfeclty good muscle-tissue to use as energy. This is where the muscle loss occurs, not from insufficient protein-intake, but from lack of carbs. Ingested protein is then only used to restore these muscles that have been sacrificed for fuel during the ride (also to repair worn-out torn muscles from exertion).

Also vitally important is the recovery phase where you must eat about 1.5g/kg body-weight in carbs within 15-20 minutes after a ride. The low blood-sugar and low muscle-glycogen levels after a ride will be coupled with high epinepherine, glucagon, and adrenaline levels. This triggers the conversion of adipose fat tissues to glucose AND catabolic breakdown of muscle-tissue in order to replenish glycogen stores in the muscle. You can stave off this muscle-breakdown by ingesting high-GI carbs immediately after the ride. This will increase insulin and leptin to stop the muscle disassembly and increase the glucose-absorption from the bloodstream to rebuild the glycogen supply. I made a more detailed post with figures here: Burning Fat/Burning Glycogen.

In order to not overtrain, to do these long endurance rides, you'll need to back off on the gym workouts. Substitute one light lifting day for the endurance ride and you should have the least impact on your muscle-building rate.

Burning fat for energy can only occur with carbs to initiate the process. Once your carbs are gone, your body will take apart perfeclty good muscle-tissue to use as energy. This is where the muscle loss occurs,

TRUE! Period.
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Originally Posted by DannoXYZ

...not from insufficient protein-intake...

FALSE! Protein ingested during exercise may be preferentially used over one's own muscles.
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The main determinants of an athlete's protein needs are their training regime and habitual nutrient intake. Most athletes ingest sufficient protein in their habitual diet. Additional protein will confer only a minimal, albeit arguably important, additional advantage. Given sufficient energy intake, lean body mass can be maintained within a wide range of protein intakes. Since there is limited evidence for harmful effects of a high protein intake and there is a metabolic rationale for the efficacy of an increase in protein, if muscle hypertrophy is the goal, a higher protein intake within the context of an athlete's overall dietary requirements may be beneficial. However, there are few convincing outcome data to indicate that the ingestion of a high amount of protein (2-3 g x kg(-1) BW x day(-1), where BW = body weight) is necessary. Current literature suggests that it may be too simplistic to rely on recommendations of a particular amount of protein per day. Acute studies suggest that for any given amount of protein, the metabolic response is dependent on other factors, including the timing of ingestion in relation to exercise and/or other nutrients, the composition of ingested amino acids and the type of protein.

The main determinants of an athlete's protein needs are their training regime and habitual nutrient intake. Most athletes ingest sufficient protein in their habitual diet. Additional protein will confer only a minimal, albeit arguably important, additional advantage. Given sufficient energy intake, lean body mass can be maintained within a wide range of protein intakes. Since there is limited evidence for harmful effects of a high protein intake and there is a metabolic rationale for the efficacy of an increase in protein, if muscle hypertrophy is the goal, a higher protein intake within the context of an athlete's overall dietary requirements may be beneficial. However, there are few convincing outcome data to indicate that the ingestion of a high amount of protein (2-3 g x kg(-1) BW x day(-1), where BW = body weight) is necessary. Current literature suggests that it may be too simplistic to rely on recommendations of a particular amount of protein per day. Acute studies suggest that for any given amount of protein, the metabolic response is dependent on other factors, including the timing of ingestion in relation to exercise and/or other nutrients, the composition of ingested amino acids and the type of protein.

Uh... you know how much protein 2-3g/kg of body-weight is? That's one double-cheeseburger a day! That's what he considers a "high amount of protein". Most people are eating well over this amount daily. Are you suggesting that even more is beneficial?

Notice the "Given sufficient energy intake" part. This refers to ingesting enough carbs to provide energy for the workout. This wards of muscle-catabolism due to a shortage of carbs. If Denver's going to be doing a 120mile ride, he'll probably do a couple 60-100mile training rides beforehand and burn off 4000 calories. These extra calories above his daily intake of 2500 calories must come from carbs. If not, he'll be using up his muscles for fuel. On a 2500 calorie short day, he won't have to take in as much carbs. Protein-requirements do not vary as much as carb-intake depending upon exercise level.

Also what are these "dependent factors" and what kind of "timing of ingestion in relation to exercise" creates what kind of effects on metabolic use of amino-acids? The elevated levels of adrenaline, glucagon and epinephrine during exercise will always have a catabolic effect on muscles and hinder absorption of glucose and amino-acids from the bloodstream. Protein is highly inefficient as an energy source anyway. I'm really talking about recovery after exercise when glucose-levels are low. That's when the most muscle-catabolism takes place.

What happened when he rode that 70-miles and bonked was completely depleting his glycogen stores in his muscles, liver and bloodstream. Up until that point, he was fine because he was burning mostly carbs and 20-30% fats. Stopping is the best thing to do, however, the recovery from this bonk is where damage can occur. One common mistake is not eating enough carbs immediately after a ride. Without elevated insulin and leptin levels to facilitiate absorption of glucose & amino-acids through the cell-menbranes, the muscle-tissues inside the cells will be disassembled to restore the glycogen levels. Only carbs can raise blood-glucose levels in order to stimulate insulin and leptin secretions. I'm not saying that protein is bad in anyway, I'm saying that insufficient carbs is the evil that must be combatted.